


Becoming a Cat Person

by embep



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Amazing, Fluff, M/M, also some angst, erasermic comes in at the end, i made them both adults so i could write them with half a brain cell this time, i think this is the most self-indulgent thing i've written to date, it's a pokemon AU but it's more slice of life than action, monoma isn't even a trainer rly, set in alola because that's what's easiest for me to write lmao, shinso kinda is but he's chill about it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-08 03:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20294647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embep/pseuds/embep
Summary: He knew it was a bad idea.Even so, as he watched the purple-haired trainer he’d had his eye on for weeks battling some kid on the street with his litten, Monoma found himself with his phone in his hand, idly scrolling through adoption listings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote (read: am still in the process of writing) this fic for monoshin week!! It's based off of [this amazing picture by perkykitties](https://perkykitties.tumblr.com/post/186979616857/everyone-shinsou-would-be-a-ghost-type-pok%C3%A9mon) :))
> 
> it's been so long since i wrote anything set in the pokemon universe and it was so funnnn

Admittedly, cats weren’t really his thing. 

Monoma liked looking up videos of meowth as much as the next person, but the thought of _owning_ one had always seemed like a bit more of a commitment than he was ready for. After all, a pokemon meant training, frequent visits to the center, treats and battles and enough toys to keep it happy while he was out of the house—not to mention the inevitable loss of clothes and furniture to their claws and shedding.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, it was just that he wasn’t big on owning a pokemon in general. Growing up, he’d only had a squirtle for around a week before his parents realized that him and competitive battling didn’t mix well and took it away from him. And, considering his gut reaction to a girl in his class telling him that he couldn’t be a model because of his height was to dedicate the next five years of his life becoming one to spite her, he thought that they were probably on to something. (Naturally, his parents hadn’t particularly liked that career path, either; they said he was squandering his talents by not going straight into business, but what they didn’t understand was that modeling was just the springboard from where he’d start launching his own brand of beauty products, and his clothing line, and if everything went the way he planned he’d have a reality show under his name within the next fifteen years, and _then_ he'd be the last one laughing.)

So, he knew it was a bad idea.

Even so, as he watched the purple-haired trainer he’d had his eye on for weeks battling some kid on the street with his litten, Monoma found himself with his phone in his hand, idly scrolling through adoption listings.

He sipped his non-fat iced latte through a straw as he traded glances between his phone and the battle outside. The kid was using a dhelmise that she must have borrowed from an older sibling or a parent, because whenever she said something to it, it’d hesitate for just long enough to earn itself a face-full of embers from the litten. 

The dhelmise lashed out with a vine that still smoldered from the litten’s attack, and Monoma sighed through his nose as he looked down at his phone. _Espurr._ Cute, but psychic pokemon tended to give him a headache. _Next._ He scrolled down the list with a flick of his thumb, glancing up out the window to see the litten leap out of the way of a vine, up into the air and straight at the dhelmise. The size difference between the two was almost comical, but when the litten sunk its teeth into the dhelmise’s green, slimy seaweed, it shrieked so loud he could hear it through the window, sharp and bone-chilling as banshee. 

Monoma cringed and went back to scrolling. Definitely no ghosts, then.

A glameow wrapped in a pink ribbon made him pause, tilting his head. It _did_ sort of fit his image, but he didn’t know how he felt about himself being associated with a purugly if it ever ended up evolving. Plus, they seemed pretty high-maintenance, which would be difficult whenever he was on the road.

_Next._

Shinx were cat-like but they weren’t quite what he was looking for, and all the static electricity would probably make him want to murder someone.

_Next._

Introducing himself with a freshly-adopted litten might have been tempting if it weren’t so dreadfully transparent.

_Next._

Were eevee even felines? 

_Next. Next. Next._

When he looked up at the battle again, it was already over. The dhelmise was on the ground, unresponsive to the girl who shouted at it, and the purple-haired guy was walking over to his litten, who sat on its flanks, panting. 

It was probably stupid to adopt a pokemon just to meet a boy in the first place. No matter how good said boy looked with the alolan sun shining down on him. Monoma watched as he bent down and picked up litten, strong arms reaching forward towards the cat, shirt riding up just enough that Monoma could see a tiny patch of exposed skin on his back, paler than the rest.

Monoma went for a drink of his latte and only managed to suck up air, the ice rattling noisily against his straw.

As the trainer straightened, the litten in his arms climbed up to his shoulder to rest. The trainer seemed to try for an exasperated look but was unable to hide his grin as he reached up to scratch its chin, and then as he dropped his arm back to his side his gaze found the café window.

By then, most of the others who had been watching the battle had moved on, their curiosity sated. Only Monoma remained staring dreamily at him, and his breath caught in his throat as he noticed the trainer was staring back. He blinked away the surprise, heart pounding in his ears. Straightening, Monoma popped the straw from his mouth to give a wave and a practiced smile: not too wide, inviting without being eager, easy and natural and pretty enough to land him a nice magazine spread. 

The purple-haired trainer seemed to startle at this as much as Monoma had, chin shooting up fast enough that his litten clung to his shoulder to stay on. The cat glared at him as he winced, glancing at it before looking back to Monoma to give him a slight nod. He hesitated, taking a half-step toward the café, and then turned away sharply and walked off, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck.

Monoma snickered at the reaction, but it turned into a longing sigh as he watched him go. He settled back down in his chair, chewing on the end of his straw idly.

Since when did he even need an excuse to talk to a cute guy, anyway?

He nearly rolled his eyes at himself as he moved to close the window on his phone, but then paused at the last second as his eyes met something pink and cream and fluffy, rolled over on its back with its tail clenched in its stubby little paws. Its mouth was wide open, like it’d been caught mid-bite, one of its three-pronged ears pointed backwards.

And he thought, well, if he was ever going to have a pokemon, he couldn’t do much better than a skitty.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monoma finds out that owning a pokemon isn't as easy as the average seven-year-old makes it sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monoshin week day 2: Trust

From what he’d read, skitty tended to be somewhat less precocious than some of the other, more difficult, feline pokemon. Less inclined to break things (on purpose), less inclined to steal things (on purpose), less inclined to start fights (on purpose)… The problem, Monoma found, is that they just weren’t very smart. He’d known this going in, of course; he’d seen too many videos of them chasing their own tails until they passed out or eating mouthfuls of dirt as they tried to consume a laser pointed at the floor to assume otherwise. But he’d never thought it would be a problem. As much as it pained him to say it, the modeling industry had more than its fair share of idiots, so he thought he was used to working with and directing them when necessary.

Well.

The problems started on the very first night he got her. Although the skitty was a bit reserved at first, he’d read it was normal for recently-adopted pokemon to be a bit cautious around their new owners for a week or so, and after dinner she seemed to be warming up. She didn’t climb up on his lap or anything, but she curled up on the couch within arm’s reach, and when he leaned over to pet her she eventually relaxed into it.

She stayed curled up on the couch until bedtime, only glancing up as he flipped off all the lights. Apparently it was best to leave the doors open for the pokemon to explore on their own at night, so he made sure they were all wide open before tucking himself into bed.

Everything was going fine until he found her laying in the hall in front of his bedroom in the middle of the night. Or, to be more accurate, his foot found her. Or, to be even more accurate, it found her tail.

She screamed loud enough that he nearly fell backwards at the sound of it, and since then he’d tried to apologize countless times, but nothing he did seemed to be working. Ever since then, she’d been staying in the far corners of the room, eyeing him like he was a murderer and always extra cagey whenever he got up to do anything, tail tucked tight against her. Monoma gave her the space she needed, let her do whatever made her feel safe and hoped it would help mend things, but after a week passed and she was _still_ darting away from him whenever he so much as took a _step_ in her direction he decided he probably needed some actual help.

Originally, Monoma had planned on asking the purple-haired trainer for battling advice, under the pretense that he’d never really done it before other than the introductory lessons they had back in grade school. It was a bit more embarrassing to admit that he couldn’t even get his pokemon to stay in the same room as him for more than a few minutes, but an opening was an opening, he guessed. So, the next time he saw the trainer battling outside the café, he finished up his coffee and headed out, waiting for the fight to finish before he approached.

The trainer looked at him as he walked across the street, straight into his eyes, and Monoma returned the look, unwavering as he continued forward. From behind the window he hadn’t been able to see what color they were. They’d always looked dark and Monoma had assumed they were black, but now he could see that they were a deep purple, with slivers of blue highlights where the sun shined into them. 

Monoma knew he was staring, but they both were. Before the trainer could look away, Monoma gave a friendly smile, tilting his head. “They say when two trainers’ eyes meet, they must battle.”

The trainer blinked, as if in a daze, and then grimaced, lifting his litten in his arms. “We just finished a battle.”

“I was watching,” Monoma said, and the trainer paused, glancing over to the café window, right at the middle counter seat where Monoma always sat. Monoma felt the smile grow on his face. “It kinda seemed like a breeze, though? I’m sure one more wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’d really…” He trailed off as his litten meowed at him, reaching up to paw at his chin. The trainer rolled his eyes, but he seemed to get contemplative after that, licking the salt from his lips as he glanced over at Monoma. 

Monoma could read his hesitation in the way he raised his brows and his sigh, long and quiet through gritted teeth. If he gave one more little push, he could probably get a battle. But that wasn’t really what he was fishing for, so he let the opportunity slip away with an exaggerated look of defeat, shoulders slumped as his lips threatened a pout.

“Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping that if we battled it might give me some me some hints what I’m doing wrong...”

The hardest part of casting bait was keeping a straight face. No matter how much Monoma practiced, he still felt his cheeks tighten, the corners of his mouth doing their best to curl upward despite his otherwise flawless performance. 

The trainer stayed quiet for a moment longer, and Monoma fought harder to keep his expression level. The more time they stood in silence, the more uncomfortably obvious it became that he was waiting for a specific response, and the trainer just looked Monoma up and down as he began to sweat, as if considering whether to play along.

His litten meowed again, and the trainer gave it a frown before huffing. A hand went behind his head to massage the back of his neck as he said, “If you want advice or something, you’re probably better off going to a pokemon center.”

Maybe that would be true if advice was the _only_ thing Monoma was after. But, since it wasn’t, he pushed past it, taking a step closer to the trainer and subtly batting his lashes in a way that he knew looked great from this angle. “Come on, humor me? I’ll make it worth your while.”

The trainer’s eyes widened faintly and Monoma liked to think that the pink on his face wasn’t just because of the Alolan sun beating down on them. 

“Come on, I’ll get you a coffee,” he offered, motioning to the café. “We can talk in there.”

When the trainer continued to falter, unable to give him a clear yes or a no, Monoma reached out to take his arm and gently tug him across the street, putting on his prettiest smile. “I won’t take up too much of your time, I promise.” 

And the trainer finally relented, allowing himself to be pulled as his litten crawled up from his arms onto his shoulder.

“Okay, sure.”

Shinso. That was who the trainer introduced himself as. Monoma liked the way the name felt on his lips, tight like a smile only to round at the end, pursed and pouty, flirty like a kiss blown into the air. He didn’t know how it sounded to Shinso coming from his mouth, but judging by the way his gaze lingered on Monoma’s lips as he spoke it, he thought it was safe to assume he’d at least managed to _look_ good while doing it.

Was he laying it on a little thick?

Yes. Absolutely. Even without the flirting, Shinso’s attraction to him was transparent as cellophane, but Monoma liked watching him react nonetheless. Besides, flirting was fun. He’d always excelled in button-pushing, much to the chagrin of his parents and teachers and competitors and photographers and peers and sponsors—and virtually anyone else who had ever stood at the wrong side of him—and flirting was just the same thing wrapped in rose-colored packaging. The process was exactly the same: chat casually, feel around for what felt good and what didn’t, and then isolate the stimuli that produced the reaction he was looking for. 

And, anyway, he liked to think it was revenge for when Shinso had said _his_ name. It was completely out of nowhere, unwarranted and without warning, in this deep, rich voice that had made Monoma stop everything he was doing as a chill ran down his spine. And then he had to live through the embarrassment of his cheeks flushing like he was back in middle school and had just heard that Billy heard from Mandy who heard from Steven who heard from Jessica that Jeff from the next class over _totally_ liked him.

If he intentionally made Shinso squirm by being a little flirtier than he needed to, he thought it was only fair.

Monoma had already had his coffee for the day, so he chose a decaf iced coffee, low-calorie and unlikely to make him jittery in the middle of a photo shoot. On the other hand, Shinso had apparently chosen to take Monoma’s offer of a single coffee and push it as far as he could take it, ordering an espresso almost as big as his head, complete with six extra shots and a couple pumps of chocolate syrup for good measure. Monoma eyed it warily as Shinso lifted the cup and, in one drink, probably got more caffeine delivered to his system than in Monoma’s entire no-fat latte.

He set it down, apparently unfazed, the bags under his eyes no lesser than they had been when the two of them walked in.

“So, you said you were having problems with your skitty?”

Monoma gave a guilty smile as he nodded. “I can’t seem to get her to relax around me.”

“How long ago did you adopt her?”

“It’s been about a week and a half now. Things were going well until I accidentally stepped on her tail, and since then she’s completely closed herself off to me.”

“You stepped on her tail?” Shinso’s face went dark, and Monoma hurried to wave a hand in front of him.

“Not on purpose! It was dark and I didn’t see her, and I’ve apologized for it, but…” He sighed through his nose, tilting his head back in an expression of defeat. “I was hoping that you might have some tips or something.”

“Because I have a litten?” he questioned, dry, as if to ask if Monoma thought that litten and skitty were the same just because they were both cats.

Monoma raised a brow and pretended like that wasn’t exactly the reason. “Because I’ve been watching you battle for the last few weeks, and you clearly have a good relationship with your pokemon.”

The confession was matter-of-fact, flat and not even necessarily intended to make Shinso fluster, but when Monoma saw him hide his surprise behind another drink of coffee he had to bite back a smirk. He reached for his own drink and watched Shinso pull together a response through half-lidded eyes, lips wrapped smugly around his straw. 

“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll try to help, but… Like I said, it would probably be best if you went to the pokemon center instead.”

“I’ll go if this doesn’t work,” Monoma assured him, flicking his hand away as if to brush the subject away. “Anyway, what did you have in mind?”

“Do you have her pokeball on you?”

“Ah.” Monoma reached down to fish it out of his pocket, and then set it down on the table between the two of them. 

He looked back up at Shinso, waiting for further instruction, and Shinso asked, “Can you let her out?”

_Inside the café?_

Monoma probably should’ve expected it when he asked him about the pokeball, but he couldn’t help looking around over his shoulders at the other patrons, his smile turning tense. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea in here. Maybe we should step outside again?” There was still a chance that she’d run, but at least there wouldn’t be a kitchen for her to accidentally destroy or people walking around with hot coffee. 

Shinso agreed that it was probably for the best, too. And it wouldn’t make much sense if they went out with drinks in their hands, so they had no choice but to stay in the café and chat until they’d finished them—which, in Shinso’s case, took a significant amount of time. Simply tragic.

They’d decided to an open field just a few blocks away from the café, where the grass was sheered short enough that the wild pokemon all stayed away, save for the occasionally cutiefly that buzzed around flowering patches of weeds. When push came to shove, Monoma had been a bit nervous to show Shinso his skitty. There was a good chance he was missing something basic, and while he knew everyone loved a dumb blonde, he didn’t want Shinso to think he was an idiot. As soon as he let her out, she did exactly what he’d been expecting: she looked around, nose up sniffing the air, and then froze as she saw him, walking around him in a slow, wide circle.

He took one step toward her and she took three steps back, ears shooting behind her.

Monoma sighed, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. “It’s as you see. She won’t let me anywhere near her.”

Shinso didn’t respond. He didn’t take his eyes off of her as he knelt down and held out a hand toward her. 

“What’s her name?” he asked, under his breath, as if not to scare her.

“Uh.” Monoma blinked. “She doesn’t have one.”

“What?”

“The agency I got her from said that she didn’t have one when she came in. I thought I’d wait until I knew her a little better, since, you know, we’d just met and everything...” he explained, shrinking a bit as Shinso gave him a disgruntled glance. “I take it that’s bad?”

“With pokemon like skitty, you _need_ to give them a name. Have you never had a pokemon before?”

Monoma flinched, looking away and scratching his cheek nervously. Yeah, this wasn’t the first impression he was hoping for.

Shinso stared at him for a second longer before pushing himself up and dusting off his knees. “I think I can see what the problem is.”

“Is it the name?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “It’s that she doesn’t trust you.”

Monoma could’ve figured out that much on his own. He raised his brows, trying to avoid the impulse to let his face fall flat. “And how do I get her to trust me?”

“The name will help,” Shinso said, putting his hands on his hips. “That, and making sure she knows that she’s in a safe place. Do you know who she was with before she was put up for adoption?”

“No idea. Apparently someone found her heavily wounded in the middle of salamance territory, but no trainer’s ever claimed her. According to the staff, she didn’t show any signs of trauma while she was with them.”

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any. I think it goes without saying, but you should avoid putting her in any battles for the time being.”

“Of course.” Monoma couldn’t even imagine trying to battle with her the way she was. She’d probably run away as soon as he gave the first order and that would be the last he ever saw of her. 

“Do you have a laser pointer?” 

Monoma shook his head. “I can get one.”

“Definitely get one. You can play with her at a distance that’s more comfortable for her, and she’ll be more likely to relax around you after you’ve tired her out. Also.” He paused, digging in his pocket to pull out a ziplock bag full of what appeared to be tiny cookies. “Try giving her some of these.”

Monoma eyed the bag as he took it from Shinso. “Treats?”

“My dad’s secret recipe. They’re healthier than what you’d usually buy in the store, so you can get away with feeding her a little more than usual.”

The bag was half-empty, filled with something like fifteen cookies, and Monoma smirked as he looked back up at Shinso. “And when I run out?”

Shinso returned his gaze for a moment before looking away, over to where Monoma’s skitty was swatting at a cutiefly, and Monoma swore the entire world brightened when he saw Shinso try to frown through the color flooding his cheeks.

“I can always make you more.”

Before they parted, Monoma made sure to take out a pen. He gave Shinso a charming smile before reaching for his hand and opening it so he could jot his number down on Shinso’s palm. He wrote in neat, careful strokes, finishing up with a heart and the words _call me_, and then used both of his hands to close Shinso’s fist gently, lingering there as he looked up at him. Shinso was transfixed, expression cloudy, and the two of them were so close that Monoma was tempted to lean up and kiss him right then and there. If it was on the cheek, he thought he could probably get away with it. He could always use his Kalosian heritage to explain it away if it made things too weird.

Instead, in a soft voice he said, “See you around, okay?”

Flirty was one thing. He didn’t need Shinso thinking he was the kind of person to kiss on the first date (he was).

Shinso’s hadn’t been able to look at Monoma straight-on as he nodded wordlessly, face bright red.

Two days later, Monoma didn’t get a call, but instead a text. 

_It’s Shinso. You asked me about your skitty the other day. Did you pick a name?_

Monoma, sitting in a room full of people, had to cover his mouth to conceal the giddy smile that spread across his face as he typed, _Lúthien._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monoma tries to battle! It's a disaster!
> 
> monoshin week day 3: Expectation

Monoma didn’t know if it was the name or the laser pointer or the treats, but Shinso’s tactics worked like a charm. Within a few days, Monoma had moved from being unable to be within ten feet of his skitty to, on occasion, being able to pet her while she was feeling lethargic. One day, she came out of nowhere and laid down next to him to sleep, and Monoma nearly teared up. He took a picture and sent it to Shinso with the caption, _Mission Success._

Maybe it was a little early to celebrate his victory, but it gave them an excuse to see each other again. 

They met at the same café as before. Shinso gave him another bag of treats, and Monoma made sure that their fingers brushed against each other as he took it, pretending he didn’t notice the way Shinso jumped and then ran his thumb over the tips of his fingers where they’d touched. 

“How many dates until you give me the recipe?” Monoma asked him as casually as possible.

His best efforts were ruined when Shinso smirked, eyebrows raised and eyes half-lidded. Just the sight of it made Monoma’s face go bright red, and the way Shinso’s voice purred was icing on the cake. “Who said this was a date?”

Monoma was already smitten. He wouldn’t have adopted a skitty if he wasn’t. He thought that was probably the moment he fell head-over-heels. 

Altogether, it took five more not-dates until Monoma finally got him to admit that they were dating. 

They sat in an upscale Alola-Kalosian fusion restaurant, gentle music playing in the background as their waiter poured their wine for them. A candle sat between them, filling the area with a soft, warm light. Neither of them were quite dressed for the occasion, but it didn’t matter, because they both looked fantastic and in that moment there was no one else in the world but the two of them.

As Monoma picked up his glass, he asked, “Is it okay if I think of this as a date?”

Shinso said, “Only if I get a kiss by the end of it.”

Monoma made sure he did.

The first time they battled together was on a rainy day in September, after they’d been together for a few months. Lúthien’s attitude had improved considerably, to the point that she’d begun actively coming to Monoma whenever she wanted to play, and recently he’d been taking her outside without her pokeball without incident. Monoma mentioned to Shinso that she’d been getting more confident after she pounced on a wild yungoos, and Shinso said that maybe she was ready to try battling.

Monoma honestly wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

For the one week that he’d had a squirtle, his dream had been to become a trial captain. Before then, he’d never given it much thought, but after he started battling with his own pokemon it completely changed him. He remembered how absorbed in it he got, spending all of his free time outside looking for wild pokemon to test himself against, memorizing reference books at night when he should have been sleeping, fighting so hard against his classmates that they’d ostracized him for the rest of the year…

Monoma was older now, and he didn’t think that he would get that bad again. Even if he wanted to, he didn’t have the spare time. But the part of him that hated to lose hadn’t changed in the slightest, and he didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on another living creature. Back when he was a kid, he didn’t think he’d quite had the mental capacity to realize that his squirtle had thoughts and feelings of its own, and so he’d worked it to the bone. On the day his parents took the squirtle away from him, he remembered he’d gone to them for help to try and figure out why it was refusing to come out of its shell. It was after the following trip to the pokemon center that they decided to take it away from him. According to the nurse, the squirtle had displayed so much stress they were lucky it had chosen to withdraw into its shell rather than lash out at him.

After that, his relationship with pokemon soured. It started out as resentment, because he hadn’t been able to understand why they couldn’t meet his standards, but as he got older it developed into a seed of guilt that, by the time he graduated high school, had blossomed into a general distaste for battling. Or, rather, for _himself_ battling. 

There were still some days that he dreamed of becoming a trial captain. He would watch their televised matches and anointment ceremonies, same as everyone else in Alola, and when they gave their offerings to the islands protectors he always felt something clench in his chest, stifling his breath, like an old flame that had never really burned out. Even now, as he pursued his dream, he still had to remind himself not to clench his teeth whenever he found himself in the same room as a trial captain or kahuna.

Monoma couldn’t say that he had no interest in battling, but the very fact that he was interested at all made him afraid to try. He knew he wasn’t good at letting things go.

So, when he stood in Shinso’s living room with Lúthien’s pokeball in his hand, he felt the weight of it dragging his entire arm down, making his shoulders sag.

“Are you sure we should be battling inside?” Monoma asked, only managing to smile on one side of his face and not even half as convincingly as he’d meant to.

Shinso glanced out the window, frowning. “It’s too wet to go outside.”

“We could always wait until the rain stops.”

He paused then, looking Monoma up and down. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re afraid of losing,” Shinso said, hitting right where it hurt. Monoma sucked in a breath to retort, but then Shinso smirked at him and Monoma felt something _smoulder._

“Fine.” Monoma’s stomach squirmed uncomfortably as the word left his mouth. “But don’t blame me if your TV gets wrecked.”

Shinso went easy on him. Monoma knew that he did, because he’d seen Shinso’s other battles, and he could tell that the litten was being more conscientious of his skitty than he might have a pokemon he was less familiar with. Lúthien’s attacks were little more than cute noises and smacks with paws that were more fluff than claw, and if he had to say the battle looked more like they were playing than they were fighting. It wasn’t anything that was meant to be taken seriously. Monoma repeated that thought in his head like a mantra as he called for a scratch and Shinso’s litten dodged out of the way, slapping his tail against Lúthien’s cheek. 

He painted a smile on his face and told himself that it was a friendly battle, conducted mostly in the interest of letting both of their pokemon get a little bit of exercise. Lúthien needed a slow introduction to battling, given both her inexperience and her aversion to pain, and it wasn’t fair to anyone to expect anything even remotely competitive from anyone.

All perfectly reasonable thoughts, but not a single one of them made him feel any better.

It went without saying that Monoma had not been expecting to win. In fact, he probably would’ve been _more_ frustrated if he had, because it would’ve meant that Shinso had _let_ him win. 

He just hadn’t expected to be so livid when he lost.

Shinso must have seen it on his face, too, because as soon as he looked up at him he cut his smirk short and asked, “You okay?” 

He sounded so genuinely concerned that it made Monoma see red.

“I’m _fine_,” he snapped, his voice so astringent that Shinso’s head shot back, brows raised. 

Both of the pokemon stopped what they were doing to look over at him as Shinso blinked, his surprise transparent in the blank look on his face. Monoma felt himself flush, knuckles white around Lúthien’s pokeball. Rain beat against the windows as the room went silent.

After a moment, Shinso asked, “Are you sure about that?”

There had been a few times before this, when talking about photographers he hated to work with, or about when he had to work with people more famous and popular than he was, where Shinso had gotten glimpses of Monoma’s temper. This was the first time he’d ever had it directed at him. 

It occurred to Monoma that he was overreacting, and the thought made him all the more defensive.

“I’m going home.” He tossed Lúthien’s pokeball onto the couch, using all of his self control to ensure he did so _gently_, then walked over to grab his jacket from where he’d hung it on the back of a chair.

“It’s raining.” Shinso’s voice came out slow, cautious and confused, like he’d found himself in a minefield and he didn’t know how he got there. “Why don’t we—”

“Can you look after Lúthien for tonight? Thanks.” 

Monoma didn’t wait for a response as he walked to the door, pulling his arms through his sleeves. Shinso followed, hesitating until Monoma opened the front door. Before Monoma could storm out, Shinso grabbed his arm, just tight enough to stop him in his tracks.

He scowled, turning back to Shinso. “What?”

“At least let me give you a ride home.”

The rain came down fast and hard outside. Monoma took one look at it and knew that if he had to walk home through it he’d be even more miserable by the time he got home.

But if Shinso drove him, he would inevitably try to talk, and Monoma didn’t trust himself not to say something that he would regret later. 

So he tugged his sleeve out of Shinso’s hand and said, “I’ll get back on my own.”

Monoma had half-expected Shinso to follow after him, and he didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed when he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha you thought you were reading fluff but we're in angst town now


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Monoma is an honest person who makes terrific life choices and is not an overdramatic bitch.
> 
> haha jk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monoshin week day 4: Care
> 
> I'm changing the rating to T because Monoma gets v drunk adofij

It was the first time Monoma had been home alone since he’d adopted Lúthien.

The change of pace was nice, he told himself. He got to wrap himself in the delicate, fluffy robe that he couldn’t wear around Lúthien for fear of her attacking it, and could play his music as loud as he wanted without risking scaring her. He placed his phone on the table and set to uncorking a wine bottle, singing his throat dry and sore. As he poured his first glass, his phone vibrated, lighting up with Shinso’s name. It would probably be good of him to respond, he thought as he picked it up and turned it off. Monoma turned the music up louder and got up off the couch, dancing through the hall with his wine glass in hand, to throw it onto his bed.

If he had to be honest, Monoma knew he was being immature. But drowning himself in wine was so much easier than being mature.

It might be nice to save himself the embarrassment and never talk to Shinso again, he thought, sniffing. He could keep the cat. 

Lúthien liked him better, anyway.

Monoma managed to make it through his second drink before the thought made him want to cry.

He didn’t actually _start_ crying until his fourth drink.

It was somewhere around the sixth that he decided that, actually, none of this was his fault at all. It was _Shinso’s_ fault for picking a fight with him in the first place, especially because how could he not know that Monoma would react the way that he did? 

He was no longer counting by the time Shinso showed up. Monoma stumbled through a spinning world to his front door when he heard the bell ring, throwing it open with his wine glass still in hand and a deep scowl set on his face.

“You,” he said, voice slurred, jabbing a finger at Shinso’s chest. “You have _some nerve_ showing up here.” 

It was hard to gauge how Shinso reacted after that. He took Monoma’s hand away from him, holding onto it and pulling it down, and then rushed to catch Monoma in his arms as he pitched forward, unconscious before he could hit the ground. 

If that night was agony, waking up the next morning was hell. Monoma found himself in his bed lying on his side, his head pounding. He still felt dizzy, but he didn’t know if it was because of the alcohol or the headache, and he curled up on himself to try and combat it, cradling his head in his arms as a soft whine escaped from his throat.

The bed moved behind him. Lúthien, his brain supplied sluggishly, until the events of last night hit and his eyes snapped wide open. 

Did he leave his house last night? Did he call anyone? Monoma knew he wasn’t above calling an ex if he was lonely and drunk enough, and he couldn’t remember anything after his third drink.

He swore to god if he had cheated on Shinso while blackout drunk he would go drown himself in his toilet.

“Monoma?”

Shinso’s voice was still thick with sleep, deep and familiar and beautiful, and Monoma let out a long breath, relaxing back into the bed at the sound of it.

Good, he hadn’t cheated, then.

_But then what was Shinso doing there?!_

His eyes snapped back open, and he sat up at once—too fast, and it made him hold his head as the world went fuzzy and distant behind a veil of pain. He let out a choked sob and thought that if he never drank again, it would be too soon.

The bed creaked as Shinso got up. Monoma opened his eyes just a crack to watch him walk around to the nightstand and grab something from it.

Monoma eyed it warily as it was handed to him. “Did you really put water in one of my wine glasses?” he asked, voice coming out gravely and shot.

Shinso snorted at the sound of it. “Don’t talk, take these.”

He did, but he made sure to shoot Shinso a look that he hoped was wary and not just half-dead. Shinso handed him a couple capsules of Tylenol along with the water, and Monoma downed all of it before laying back down in bed, spreading his arms and legs out wide as he waited for it to take effect. 

“What are you even doing here?” he asked, gazing at Shinso from the corner of his eyes, just in time to see him turn his head away sharply. Monoma opened his mouth to question it, but then cut himself off as Shinso snuck another glance at him, and Monoma followed his gaze down to his body, where his pink, fluffy robe was spread wide open and leaving very little to the imagination.

If he was a little less hungover or confused, he might have taken advantage of it, but as his heart picked up it was like he could feel the pounding in every crevice of his skull. Monoma pulled his robe closed hurriedly, his ears feeling hot as he stared at the wall on the opposite side of the room from Shinso. 

“Well?” he prompted.

“I guess you don’t remember what happened last night?”

Dread solidified in his gut. Monoma was already feeling nauseous, and his nerves made it twice as worse. 

“Did I call you?”

“The opposite. You wouldn’t answer any of my texts, and I got worried.” Shinso sighed through his nose as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “It was pouring when you left. I got to thinking maybe you hadn’t made it home at all.”

The dread turned to guilt and Monoma felt no less sick for it.

“Little did I know you were safe at home, getting yourself piss drunk on cheap wine and trying to deafen your neighbors.”

He didn’t sound mad necessarily, but he didn’t sound particularly happy, either. 

Monoma gave a petulant sniff. “It was not _cheap wine_.”

Shinso apparently didn’t have a response for that. Both of them waited for the other to say something more, but the most stubborn part of Monoma was still mad about yesterday and he didn’t know what to say.

Eventually, Shinso pushed himself back up off the bed, and Monoma glanced back at him, eyeing the frown set deep on his face. “Alright,” he said, and now he sounded angry. Monoma’s heart sank like the Titanic, straight down to his feet, leaving his chest to feel cold and empty. “I only stayed overnight because I was worried you might choke on your own vomit or something after you passed out on me. Clearly you’re fine now.”

Monoma bit back a groan as he moved to sit up, but Shinso didn’t pause, walking out toward the hall until Monoma reached to grab his arm.

“Wait.”

Shinso looked back at him levelly, face placid, but Monoma could read the irritation in the line of his brow. “You didn’t.”

Monoma flinched and nearly drew his hand back. “I’m… sorry about that. About yesterday.” He gave an uneasy smile, as if to hide his nerves. “I was afraid that I might do or say something that, uh…” 

For all he prided himself on his charisma, he was awful at apologizing. Not that he hadn’t known that already, but he couldn’t help internally cringing at himself. Monoma took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing.

“Look, you know how I get when I’m mad, right? I just needed to cool down before I did something I’d regret, and I know I could’ve handled it better, but… But I didn’t. And if I said something weird to you last night, I’m sorry about that, too.” His words came out disjointed and defensive, more aggressive than he’d anticipated, and he avoided Shinso’s gaze as he continued. “I was probably—definitely—not being very mature about it but. I _did_ do it for your sake. For _our_ sake. So.”

Shinso seemed to take some time to process this, and Monoma continued to look away, refusing to make eye contact. 

Finally, in a softer voice, he asked, “What made you so upset?”

It had never occurred to him that Shinso wouldn’t know why he’d lost his temper, and somehow the realization made the entire situation even more embarrassing. He curled up into a ball, knees pressed to his chest as he mumbled, “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not that good with competition.”

“Competition?”

“Like, at work or battles or whatever. I’m just—I take it too seriously, I guess.”

“But we weren’t competing.” Shinso spoke slowly, like he was explaining something to a child. “The battle wasn’t even remotely—”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Monoma snapped, body tensing, but it just made his head hurt worse and he laid it back down on the mattress, feeling miserable as he looked down at his sheets. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You can’t expect a pokemon that’s never battled before to be perfect.”

“I _know._ I didn’t expect her to win—”

“Then why are you acting like this?” Shinso’s eyes were narrowed when Monoma looked over, still slightly confused but his frustration came through them unfiltered, and Monoma felt something inside of him break as he looked into them. 

This was always how his relationships ended. Things were fun and nice at first when it was just to hot people messing around, but then they started to get to know each other better, to get to know _him_ better, and things fell apart. His relationships were, as a rule, as vapid as he was. Cat or not, if he thought even for a second that what he had with Shinso was different, he was an idiot. 

Monoma laughed quietly, a smile drifting to his face, soft and easy, his last line of defense. “Maybe I’m trying to get your attention?”

“Bullshit.”

Shinso didn’t even blink, so Monoma doubled down on his smile, pushing himself up to sit and tilting his head. After a night of drinking himself into a coma, he knew he couldn’t possibly look as nice and convincing as he usually might, but at the very least he thought he’d managed not to look as vulnerable as he felt.

“I know it’s a turn-off,” he said, breezy. “If you want to break up, that’s fine, I get it.”

“What?” Shinso gave him an incredulous look. “I’m not going to break up with you over one fight.”

Monoma scoffed, the words leaving him before he could stop them. “Why not? You wouldn’t be the first.”

He had to stop himself from shrinking under Shinso’s gaze as he paused, keeping that same lazy smile on his face, posing for all that he was worth. Because he couldn’t let Shinso see how he was feeling. If he knew, then this whole thing would look like a guilt trip, like Monoma was trying to use his compassion to manipulate him into sticking around, instead of what he was _actually_ trying to do, which was—

Monoma couldn’t quite say what he was trying to accomplish, actually. Maybe he was trying to give Shinso an easy way out.

He wasn’t expecting Shinso to reach over and wrap an arm around him.

Monoma startled, looking over at him, and he moved to push Shinso away immediately, panicking. It was hard enough to keep up the facade as it was. He didn’t think that he could do it from inside Shinso’s embrace.

Instead of letting go, Shinso held tighter, sighing long and deep as he pulled him closer and wrapped him in a hug.

“Go away,” Monoma said, ignoring how thick and unnatural his voice sounded through the lump in his throat. He redoubled in his attempt to push Shinso away. “I need to brush my teeth.”

“Monoma, look at me.”

He didn’t—he couldn’t. He was already melting from the warmth of Shinso’s arms, and he was afraid that if he saw what he was losing it’d be too much for him to take.

“Neito.”

Monoma looked at Shinso before he could help himself, and Shinso ensured he stayed there with a hand on his cheek. It felt as if the air had been sucked from him, and he didn’t dare speak as his vision flooded. Shinso leaned in for a kiss, long and gentle, and Monoma felt himself get lost in it despite his best efforts. 

As he pulled away, Shinso’s grip on him tightened, and leaned up to press one more kiss to Monoma’s forehead. He rested his lips against him, whispering softly into his hair, “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Monoma let out a shuddering breath, eyes fluttering closed, and Shinso brushed away a fugitive tear as it fell down his face.

They stayed there for a moment, unmoving, neither of them saying a word. 

Shinso was the one who eventually broke their contact, pulling away and stretching. Monoma let him go freely, stubbornly scrubbed the wetness from his eyes with his palms, and then looking up as he felt a hand drop atop his head.

“Now, go brush your teeth.” he said, ruffling Monoma’s hair. “I’ll make breakfast.”

Monoma let an awful sound that was as much of a laugh as it was a sob, hiding his face behind his hands as he nodded.

As he walked to the door, Shinso paused, shooting Monoma a smirk in parting. “And fix your robe, too. You look like you’re about to make your pinup debut.”

Monoma glared from between his fingers, reaching behind him to throw a pillow at Shinso, but by the time it left his hand Shinso had already slipped out of the room, leaving the pillow to hit the closed door and fall to the floor anticlimactically. When he huffed in frustration, he didn’t know if it was at Shinso or at himself or at the fact that Shinso’d managed to get the last word in, but whatever the case he felt a bit better by the end of it, and after a second he managed to push himself out of bed and drag his feet to the bathroom. He wiped away the last of his tears and untied his robe, shrugging it from his shoulders as he stepped into the master bathroom.

And then he looked up and saw himself in the mirror. He was puffy from the tears and the alcohol, fresh blemishes with no makeup to hide them, his skin sickly and his hair a complete disaster. As he stared at himself, it hit him that despite how hideous he looked, how hideous he felt, how hideous he was _acting_, despite throwing a huge fit and making a fool out of himself over nothing, Shinso still was in his kitchen making him breakfast. 

That Shinso still wanted him.

And, two steps from victory, Monoma felt it push him over the edge. He put a hand over his mouth to try and stifle the sobs as he knelt in front of the sink, head cradled in his arms as he cried himself ugly into the linoleum.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monoma and Shinso have a conversation.
> 
> Day 5: Unfamiliar
> 
> (chapters are probably going to get shorter since i've started work again asfoiaf sorry ;;)

It took several conversations and a few more fights for the two of them to decide that Monoma was really, really not cut out for friendly battles. And, moreover, what to do about it. The problem was that, while Monoma was perfectly fine avoiding battles for the rest of his life, neither of them thought it was fair to Lúthien, who might decide that she wanted to battle once she started feeling a bit more comfortable in her own skin. If Monoma was going to continue being her trainer, he couldn’t deny her that right.

One day, as they were doing the dishes, Shinso asked, “What about double battles?”

Monoma frowned as he dried one of Shinso’s plates, tilting his head. “Double battles?”

Elbow-deep in soapy water, Shinso nodded, looking over at him. “Would things be easier if we battled together?”

Monoma’s frown deepened as he thought, moving his head from one side to the other. 

“I couldn’t say,” he admitted. “We never really covered it in our core classes, and I tended to avoid taking battle classes for electives, since, you know.”

“Would you be willing to try it?”

He didn’t want to say no, because he knew that Shinso was trying to find a compromise, but he didn’t want to say yes, because the very idea of going out and losing to a pair of elementary-aged children was enough to get his blood pumping hot. 

But he paused at the thought of that, looking over at Shinso. It was hard to imagine Shinso losing to a pair of kids, and, in fact, it wasn’t often that he lost battles in general, except for when obviously overpowered by his opponent. Monoma had seen Scratch, Shinso’s litten, take on a lapras once and come away from the battle with his tail hung high. With one pokemon and driving passion for the sport, it wasn’t as if Shinso was in a position to go pro anytime soon, but Monoma couldn’t deny that he was a good trainer.

“I wouldn’t want to hold you back,” he said carefully. “I don’t want us to battle together and have you win in spite of me.”

“I wouldn’t be winning in spite of you.” He handed Monoma another plate as he finished washing it. “We’d be a team.”

Monoma eyed him warily as he wiped the plate off with a towel, and Shinso sighed. 

“I know what you’re thinking, but double battles are different from one-versus-one battle. Have you ever looked into the strategies at all?”

“Not since I was eight.”

“I’ve got a book you can borrow, if you want to look into it.” 

He didn’t particularly, and he had a smart phone so he didn’t need a book in any case, but when they finished cleaning and Shinso handed it to him, he took it anyway. And then they settled on the couch, where their cats quickly found their laps, and Shinso turned on the TV as Monoma began flipping through the book. Altogether, he found that the strategies contained tended to be quite a bit different from one-on-one battles, which tended to be focused on strength and maneuvering rather than attack combinations and diverting the opponent's attention. He turned the pages one after another as he stroked the skitty in his lap, a frown set on his face.

By the end of the night, he’d finished the book and ordered two more on the subject. 

Monoma let out a breath and put his phone down on top of the book, looking blankly at the TV that neither of them were watching. A glance over at Shinso told him that he was flipping through his phone, and Monoma leaned over against him, putting his head on his shoulder so he could look over it at what he was reading.

It was a news article, apparently. From what he could gather, it was something about the Pokemon League that they were planning on setting up on Ula’ula next year. Monoma scanned over it silently, his hand wandering down to find Scratch’s chin, who twitched before purring at the attention.

“Are you thinking about trying the league out when it opens?” Monoma asked.

Shinso paused to look over at him. “I don’t think I’d get very far with a single litten,” he said.

It was the answer Monoma had expected, but the way he’d said it, slow and quiet, like he’d given it thought, made Monoma pause, and he moved a bit so he could look at Shinso straight-on. “You could try. Obviously you’re a little old for a _journey,_ but there’ll probably be a lot of older people taking on the trials when the league opens. It might be interesting to see how far you can get.”

Shinso frowned. “I’ll think about it.”

“More, you mean?” Monoma said, and Shinso gave him a perturbed look as he put his phone down.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “What about you? Do you think you could handle a double battle?”

“Of course I could _handle_—”

Shinso cut him off with a look, and Monoma settled back down, huffing.

“It’s your fault for phrasing it like that,” Monoma said, knowing full well that it wasn’t. Shino, making no move to apologize, apparently agreed. “Anyway, I’m… not sure. I still feel like I’d be…” _dragging you down._ Monoma’s mind completed the sentence for him and he tried to push away his frustration. “…not quite up to your standard.”

“I think you’re proof enough that I don’t really have those,”

Monoma raised a brow. “That joke doesn’t work as well when you’re dating a supermodel.”

Shinso snorted. “One person recognizing you on the street does not make you a supermodel.”

“It was more than one, and I think I’m more qualified than you to say what constitutes a supermodel.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Monoma glared. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation. Could you do the same?”

Smiling and laughing quietly, Shinso slipped an arm around Monoma, hand resting on the back of his head. After a moment, he said, “What if you tried a support role instead?”

That was actually one of the things he’d been mulling over, himself. He’d seen strategies involving moves like helping hand and safeguard that could help lead Shinso to victory without getting in his way—but it would still be Shinso’s victory, and he didn’t know how he felt about that, because he knew that if they happened to lose he’d still consider it a failure of his own.

Plus, he didn’t particularly like the thought of being in a battle and not being at the center of it, but he was somewhat less ready to admit that to Shinso.

He snapped out of his thoughts as Shinso began to play with his hair, running his fingers through it. He leaned into the touch and wished that life could always be as nice and easy as it was when the two of them were cuddled on the couch. 

Evidently Shinso had taken Monoma’s thoughtful silence as a no, because he spoke up again before Monoma could respond to his initial suggestion. “What if we made something else the goal? Instead of winning.”

Monoma blinked, unsure if he’d heard correctly. “Such as?”

“Anything. Like, trying to make a battle last as possible while only using status moves, or making the goal to do something that’ll surprise your opponents. Winning doesn’t have to be the only reason you challenge someone.”

“That’s easy to say when you win regularly, not so easy when you lose.” He frowned. “But… I’ll think about it.”

Shinso hummed in response, low in the back of his throat, and Monoma looked back up at him, eyeing the hard line of his jaw. Without giving it much thought, he leaned up to press a kiss to it, making Shinso chuckle as he pulled away. 

“What’s the occasion?”

“Do I need one?” Monoma asked, coquettish tilt to his head.

He felt Shinso’s hand slide down from his head to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, and the cats knew to run off as they brought their mouths together. He _would_ think about it, but for the moment he let himself be carried away by thoughts of an entirely different matter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinso and Monoma learn how to battle in their own special way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6: Confusion
> 
> lmao i just barely got this finished it took me so long i swear to god. strongly unbetaed pls forgive

Instead of battles, they took to calling them “challenges.” It took some doing for Monoma to not feel like an idiot when he talked _taking on a challenge_ when they both knew they were talking about a battle, but after their first attempt it got easier.

For a couple of weeks, they talked about possible challenges they could try out, fleshing out some ideas while rejecting others. (Monoma was still a bit sore that his brilliant idea to conduct a battle entirely in meter had been rejected, but he had the feeling that if he might be able to talk Shinso into battling in rhyme.) They kept a list of ideas on the coffee table so that they could jot it down whenever one of them got a burst of inspiration, coffee-stained and slightly charred from where Scratch had sneezed on it. The first they decided to try was simple: trade their shoes without having the opponent notice. 

They went out to the beach in sandals and found a couple of high school kids who were open to a casual battle. The two sent out a wingull and a lurantis while Scratch and Lúthien emerged from their pokeballs, and Monoma swore that when the kids paused to share a smirk at the sight of them that if they lost this battle his pride would never allow him to do another. 

Luckily, they won.

Because of the type matchup, the students failed to strategize, allowing the wingull to focus on Scratch while the lurantis switched between guarding from the flames and attacking Lúthien. The skitty was still not could do little more than pick a direction and slap, but she was quick on her feet even in the sand, and in his free time Monoma had taken to teaching her how to dodge. They went at it like a game of tag, running around the house and the park, which was amazing for Monoma’s cardio but made giving her a bath nearly impossible unless he snuck up on her while she was sleeping.

It all paid off as he saw the lurantis continuously fail to get a clean hit on her, its frustration rising and making its moves sloppy and predictable. 

As the trainers focused on the battle and guiding their pokemon, Monoma and Shinso subtly slipped off their sandals and traded places. Shinso’s sandals felt too big on him as he put his feet into them, made of soft, worn leather, and he imagined that his own must have felt too tight, plastic and pinching from the decorations along the thong.

And, as predicted, a second later he heard Shinso grunt, “You’ve got tiny feet.”

Monoma smiled and ordered Lúthien to dodge to the left, bringing the two of them closer to Scratch.

The litten jumped between her and the lurantis and spat out a wall of fire before it could get away. At the same time, Lúthien jumped up toward the wingull, who had been following Scratch close, and pounced onto it, dragging it down to the ground.

After that, all that was left was to clean up. Scratch chased the lurantis down while Lúthien continued to pester the wingull, making it fly higher and higher. When the lurantis fainted, leaving the wingull alone on the field in a stalemate against the two cats, the teens took it upon themselves to forfeit the match.

The victory didn’t feel nearly as hollow as Monoma had feared it would, and as they walked away from the beach in each other’s shoes, Shinso unable to hide his limp, Monoma guessed it had been pretty fun, too.

The scale of their challenges only escalated from there. 

Shinso didn’t want to do anything too difficult, at least not at first, but he agreed that they should try something a bit more dramatic. As such, they decided on what Monoma felt was the natural escalation of trading shoes: trading shirts. (Or, the illusion of it, in any case.)

The next time the two of them hit the beach, they came in bright, garish outfits of yellow and purple, their hair and pants and shirts and shoes all matching and impossible to ignore. Shinso’s came complete with a small, purple backpack that they’d bought for the occasion, and they found a young couple with a pair of oricorio that Monoma wished he could judge but, looking at the skitty he’d adopted solely as an excuse to talk to his boyfriend, found that he could not.

This time, they had to choreograph their movements a bit more carefully, so Shinso took most of the charge of directing the battle while Monoma devoted his attention to watching its flow, making sure that the opposing trainers were adequately distracted by the battle before moving.

The first step was when one of the cats took a hit. Monoma had assumed that it would be Lúthien, but was mildly surprised when scratch was the one who waddled his way over to him, sporting a nice abrasion on his flank from the oricorio’s talons. There were a couple potions in the bag, so Monoma took one and sprayed it over the wound, and then went to put the empty canister back into the backpack as she trotted back to the battle. 

That was when things got a little more interesting. As Monoma opened the backpack again, he took out two shirts: one yellow and one purple. He handed the yellow to Shinso carefully behind his back, where he held it from view of the other couple, and hid the purple one behind his own back as he walked out from behind Shinso. Neither of the other trainers seemed to realize they’d done anything, but this was only the first phase of their operation and by far the easiest. 

The two of them moved far apart, on opposite ends of the battle, so that the two trainers could only ever look at one of them at the same time. Shinso drew attention to himself first with a slew of orders, making Scratch dance between the oricorio so that they couldn’t fire off air slashes without being at risk of hitting the other. The couple tried to retaliate, one with featherdance and the other with peck, but Scratch jumped out of the way just in time, landing the pink oricorio with a face-full of yellow feathers.

Meanwhile, Monoma slipped the shirt over his head, grateful for all of his experience with crowded changing rooms as he maneuvered his way out of the yellow shirt he had on under it, pulling it up and off of himself subtly from under the cover of his second shirt. 

With it off of him, he bunched it up into a ball and hid it behind him like he had the first, and then it was his turn to steal the show.

In the time since their last battle, they’d spoken a bit about what a skitty could realistically do in battle. They were a species that tended to be associated more with their roles as house pets than their presence in the competitive scene, but they did have one thing going for them: the flexibility of their typing.

Truth be told, Monoma had always appreciated normal-type pokemon. While that might have had something to do with how cute they tended to be, he thought that the most interesting thing about them had to be the adaptability. Unlike most other pokemon, who had to stick to just one or two types, normal pokemon had a wide pool of moves and types that they could prove from, and despite having avoided the topic of battling whenever he could help it, there were still some days when he would join in on arguments on type theory. Some idiots out there would really have people believe that dragon is better than normal, and Monoma couldn’t help the compulsion to set them straight.

Accordingly, when Monoma had decided that he might not be opposed to more frequent battles, one of the first things he’d done was look into move tutoring.

It was an expensive process, but it was quick, and Monoma was not lacking in assets. 

The battle completely turned around as Monoma ordered a shockwave on the pink oricorio, filling the beach with bright yellow and the slight smell of burnt feathers over the saltiness of the beach. The look on the opponents’ faces, of slack-jawed dread, made the outrageous amount of money Monoma had paid for the attack worth it. 

He immediately called for another, and Lúthien puffed out, pink fur sticking on end as she expelled another wave of electricity out of her, straight toward the pink oricorio. It tried to jump into the sky but wasn’t fast enough, and as it reeled from the attack Scratch leapt on it, sinking his teeth into its wing.

As the oricorio began to cry out, the young woman raised her pokeball to withdraw it, but then she paused, her head turning over to Shinso. It made Monoma’s heart jump in his chest, because he realized he’d been so caught up in the battle and Lúthien’s new power that he’d forgotten to keep looking around at the status of the trainers. He followed her gaze over to Shinso, who should have finished changing by now if they were going according to the plan, but—

Shinso stood there, trying to wrestle a shirt over his head, his yellow shirt riding up hard to expose his abs as he tugged the purple one up by the collar. One of his arms was inside of the mess of cloth, scrambling around to try and make sense of it, and he had a deep-set frown on his face as he struggled, apparently even more frustrated than the time Scratch and Lúthien had teamed up together to turn his escape rope into a giant mass of tangled fiber. 

A snicker left Monoma before he could stop it, and he slapped a hand over his mouth, but it did absolutely nothing to help the sputtered laughter that followed it.   
It felt like he was watching a poorly-acted infomercial.

The woman looked over to the man she was with and pointed over at Shinso, muttering something that Monoma couldn’t hear over the sound of the battle. The pink oricorio was out of the picture, lying face-down in the sand, and so the cats had moved on to the yellow one, which was proving more difficult if only for the fact that it naturally resisted electricity, and it was quicker than the pink one had been.

Both of the other trainers looked from Shinso to him, giving Monoma a once-over in his new purple shirt, and then turned back to each other. Monoma thought he’d gotten a handle on himself, calming his laughter and blinking the wetness from his eyes, but then the battle started to quiet, just over the sound of the waves hitting the beach, he heard Shinso grunting. He bit his lip, blinking harder and trying to will himself silent.

Shinso tried to pull the shirt up over his head, his movements stiff with irritation, and it caught on his arm, stopping it mid-way and leaving him unable to see with a swath of purple cloth tight against his face. It sagged in over his mouth as he opened it to make a sound of frustration, and that was when Monoma lost it, pitching forward. He abandoned the yellow shirt he’d been hiding behind his back to hold his stomach, head falling back as his hand dropped from his mouth and he laughed into the open air. 

He must have understood that the challenge was over, because Shinso froze as soon as he heard it, his movements slowing. 

After a moment, he said, “Monoma, stop laughing and help me.”

It just made Monoma laugh even harder.

He didn’t stop even as he walked over to Shinso and began untangling him from his shirts, ultimately pulling the yellow one off of his head to find that he’d—as predicted—managed to get only one of his arms out of the purple one he had under, and it hung from his other, stretched and probably ruined with how hard Shinso had been fighting it.

With his face unblocked and now thoroughly shirtless, Shinso sent a fierce scowl across the battlefield, brows knitted together and face flushed, but as his gaze settled down on Monoma, still unable to contain himself, it softened.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, giving Monoma a gentle push that nonetheless left him stumbling back.

“It can’t be that funny,” he said, still peeved from the sound of his voice, and Monoma let his arms slip around him, not sure if he was holding him for the support or just because he wanted to. Even as they put a shirt back on Shinso (a shame) and Monoma began to calm down again, he stayed there, connected to Shinso as they apologized to the pair of very confused trainers. Although they’d clearly had the upper hand in the battle, they handed them the prize money regardless, and Monoma found that it didn’t really sting when they did. 

As they walked back to Shinso’s house—because, despite Monoma’s being bigger, nicer, and cleaner, they somehow always ended up at Shinso’s—he let out a long, content sigh. Lúthien, resting on his shoulder, nuzzled her face into him at the sound of it, and he reached back to scratch her chin. 

“That was fun.”

Shinso raised a brow, his face still a bit red from the whole ordeal. “Maybe for you.”

He snorted, but didn’t allow himself to let out anymore laughter than that, because he was afraid that if he got himself going again he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“We should try it again sometime. Or, maybe…” Monoma looked away, chest convulsing with held-in laughter. “Maybe we should try something a little different next time.”

Shinso rolled his eyes. “You know, if I ever laughed at you this much, I’d be sleeping on the couch for a week.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Monoma tried to mean it.

“Whatever. I don’t really care, but…” He folded his arms in front of himself, glaring out in front of him. “We’re redoing that challenge tomorrow.”

“I thought I was the one who didn’t like to lose,” Monoma said, smirk in his voice, and Shinso scoffed. 

“We’re redoing it tomorrow.”

Monoma moved to worm an arm up between where Shinso had folded his, linking them together and leaning closer. It made walking more difficult if he was honest, but he didn’t mind and Shinso didn’t complain about it, either.

“If you say so.”

In the end, it took two more tries for them to successfully change their shirts in the middle of battle, and Shinso never quite developed the coordination to change his as quickly or subtly as Monoma. It was hard to keep a straight face when, in the middle of the battle, Monoma had to watch Shinso pull his shirt clear off and put the other on, but it was worth the effort when they reached the end of the battle and the people they’d been battling both stopped, looking the both of them up and down with puzzled expressions. 

“Did you…” one of them stared to ask before shaking his head and handing over the prize money.

Monoma and Shinso watched the trainers walk off afterwards, pausing in their tracks occasionally to look back at them before continuing off on their way.

He still didn’t particularly like losing, but as he looked up at the grin on Shinso’s face, he thought that maybe it was worth the risk sometimes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monoma and Shinso have a very serious conversation in the soup aisle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monoshin week day 7: free day
> 
> you know i can't really say where the inspiration for this chapter came from but once my brain birthed it i was like "well i guess this is what i'm writing now"

On Sundays, they liked to go grocery shopping. First, they’d go to an organic supermarket, where Shinso would pick up various berries and other things from which he made the cats’ food and treats. After that, they went to whatever generic grocery store was closest to them so that Shinso could get food for himself, generally pre-made and only needing to be reheated unless Monoma had any say in it, and then last they went to an upscale place so that Monoma could buy his activated rolled oats and quinoa. It usually took two hours to get through everything minimum, and that was if they didn’t have other errands to do along the way, so they usually liked to devote the morning or the afternoon to it—whichever one both of them had free.

They were at their second stop, in the middle of the soup aisle, when Shinso asked him out of nowhere, “So, when do I get to meet your parents?”

Monoma froze with his fingers brushing a can of something labeled _Hearty Vegetable_ and looked over at him slowly. “What?”

“Your parents. It’s been half a year or something, right?”

He asked the question like he’d somehow forgotten the sixth month anniversary Monoma had planned for them in a few weeks, and all the anniversary gifts that Monoma showered him with at the end of each month despite his insistence every single time that he didn’t need them.

Monoma narrowed his eyes. “You know it has.”

“Are you going to answer the question?”

With a huff, Monoma turned back to the soup and finally let himself pick the can off the shelf, turning it around to look at the nutrition facts. “You can’t meet them now,” he said, wrinkling his nose as his eyes scanned over the carbs and put it back. “They won’t like you yet.”

“Yet?”

“To be more precise, they won’t like you until I’m at least twice as successful as I am now.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, his voice gruff, full of the same exaggerated exhaustion that he always put on whenever he wanted to make it seem like something hadn’t hurt his feelings. Monoma hazarded a glance over at Shinso and saw his brow furrowed, teeth grit in a frown. There was no way around it without being frank, though, so Monoma barreled on.

“You remember me telling you their dream for me was to become a CEO?” Shinso nodded, and Monoma continued, head tilting slack on his neck as he shrugged with one shoulder. “Well, when I became a model, it changed to me _marrying_ a CEO instead. I guess they figured I’d be a trophy wife or something.” Monoma’s face twisted into a sneer at the thought.

Shinso snorted. “So, I’m too poor, basically.”

“Basically.” He sighed. “Well, we both are. Like I said, after I get a little more famous I’m sure they’ll love you.”

“Uh huh.” Shinso didn’t appear convinced. “And how long do you estimate that’ll take?”

“Around another year or so. It depends on how well my makeup line does.”

Shinso looked him up and down, as if trying to decide if he was telling the truth or just trying to come up with reasons not to introduce him to his mom and dad. Monoma raised a brow in response.

“If you want, I can show you my flowchart.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Shinso shook his head. “That’s okay. I probably wouldn’t be able to make sense of it, anyway.”

“The principles aren’t that difficult to understand.”

“I was talking about your handwriting.”

Monoma’s expression went flat and he didn’t even respond to that, just turned back to the cans of soup lining the aisles and tried to find something that he could consume without bloating him up. It wasn’t _his_ fault that Shinso apparently never learned how to read cursive. As he pretended to fume, Shinso came up behind him, taking Monoma’s hand in his own and lacing their fingers together, and—

And Monoma had half a mind to tell him he was lucky he was so cute, but he thought Shinso was already cocky enough without Monoma filling him with hot air.

“Why do you even want to meet them?” he asked instead, picking up a can of something that was apparently made entirely from celery and salt and returning it back to the shelf with a grimace. “They’re barely even a part of my life anymore.”

Shinso shrugged. “There was a kid with his mom in the other aisle over and it got me thinking. Plus, you’ve met my dad, so it’s only fair.”

“No, I hav—” he started in a petulant voice, but Shinso was giving him a serious look and Monoma stopped suddenly at the sight of it, squinting. “What? _When?!”_

“Last month, I think? When you released that lip gloss.”

“You’re going to need to be more specific than that.”

“My dad was the guy you did the radio interview with.” He paused. “You’d probably remember him as the annoying blond one.”

Monoma continued to stare at him with a lost expression, and then suddenly it clicked and his brows must have skyrocketed all the way through the stratosphere and straight into outer space. He opened and closed his mouth before sputtering, “Yamada Hizashi?”

Shinso gave a single nod, picking up a can from the shelf and throwing it into the cart without even looking at it. He must have felt Monoma’s gaze on him, drilling holes through him, because he looked over with a raised eyebrow. “What, you didn’t know?”

He said it like it was some piece of cocktail knowledge he’d picked up while binge-watching the Discovery Channel and not not a critical piece of information that he’d been keeping from Monoma for god knows what reason.

“How could I _possibly _know that unless you tell me?” he demanded, so actually outraged that he almost wanted to slap him.

“I thought that was why you talked to me,” Shinso said with a shrug. “I figured you knew about my dads. I mean, why else would you—someone like you—go out of your way to hit on someone like me otherwise?”

It was even more tempting to smack him and as Monoma restrained himself he gripped Shinso’s hand tighter.

“I don’t know, because you’re _hot_ maybe?” he said, voice strained, and Shinso just scoffed.

It made him pause, looking up at him. Monoma could not believe for a second that Shinso had never heard he was hot before, from him or anyone else, but he told himself to put a pin in it, to save the conversation for some later date, because he had more important things to flip out over.

“Yamada Hizashi is your dad?” Monoma repeated, less to pose the question than to let the words sink in.

Shinso nodded again, and then gave an amused look as Monoma’s face went bright red.

“Oh god,” he groaned. “I had no idea that he was your… _Oh my god_.”

“What’s the matter?”

Monoma hesitated, looking around the aisle for some excuse not to explain himself and finding it entirely empty. If there was a god, Monoma was convinced he was hated by it.

He took a deep breath. “I, uh… Started a fight with him?” Shinso was already giving him an incriminating look at that, but it was about to get worse, and Monoma could feel his face flooding with color already. “About who had a better boyfriend…?”

Shinso seemed to joke on the air on his lungs, and he took his hand away from Monoma’s to cough into his fist. “You _what?” _

“I didn’t…! You never told me that he was your dad! Oh my _god_.” With both hands free, Monoma pressed them to his face, trying to hide his shame. “I told him that you... Oh god, that must have been why he looked so amused whenever I bragged about you. I thought he was looking down on me since everyone knows he’s with the Kahu—”

Monoma’s head snapped up to Shinso.

“Wait, is your other dad the Kahuna?”

“Of Ula’ula, yeah. That’s how I got Scratch.”

The way he said it like everyone had a Kahuna for a dad might have been infuriating if Monoma was in a slightly different state of mind. All he could do at the moment was go back to hiding behind his hands, though, voice coming out muffled from behind them. “Why didn’t you tell me until now?”

“I don’t know, you never asked and it never came up.” Shinso sounded mildly defensive. He paused before asking, “What did you tell my dad, anyway?”

“Nothing, like—_god_. Nothing _bad _obviously, but after the interview he asked me if I was dating anyone, and I kinda thought he might be coming onto me because, like—he’s married, but that doesn’t really matter in the industry. Not when you’re trading in favors. So I told him that I—oh god it’s so _obvious_ now—I told him that I had the best boyfriend in the world, and then he started laughing and made this offhanded comment about how he doubted you could beat his husband, and—it was stupid, I should’ve let it go, but I just...”

When Monoma peaked between his fingers, he saw Shinso with his eyes shut tight, squeezing the bridge of his nose. He felt like he should say something, but he was out of words, mortified and wishing for nothing more than the floor to swallow him up.

Neither of them said a word, standing in the soup aisle and trying to wrap their heads around the situation. There was a full minute of silence between them before Shinso spoke again.

“You’re an idiot,” he seemed to conclude.

Monoma wished he could argue, but he just bit the corner of his mouth and looked away.

“Didn’t he say anything to you about it after the interview? You two must have talked since then.” Monoma asked, and Shinso shook his head, finally beginning to flush himself.

“He said he thought you were cute and that was pretty much it.”

Monoma didn’t know if that made it better or worse. At least he knew that Shinso’s parents didn’t hate him, but the thought that he’d let himself be played by the people who might become his future in-laws made him burn up so hot inside he felt like he might explode from it.

“I need to meet them,” he said quickly. “I need to… God, I need to set things straight. I can’t let _that _be their only impression of me.”

Shinso frowned. “Can you fit a trip to Ula’ula into your schedule?”

That made Monoma hesitate, and he pulled out his phone, opening his calendar app and thumbing through the weeks as he looked for a couple days of space. The most he had was a day here, an afternoon there, and he was beginning to think it might actually be hopeless until he found his saving grace: a fashion show in Malie City next month. He’d planned on devoting the time afterward to networking, but he thought that he might be able to get away with cutting down on that by around half and using the rest of the time to visit Shinso’s family. The next morning he was free until his ferry back to Melemele.

“Are you free on the first?” he asked as he looked up, blinking a few times.

“You mean January first?”

Monoma barely resisted rolling his eyes, managing to restrain his sass to his voice only. “Well, I obviously don’t mean yesterday.”

“Yes, I’m free on _New Year’s Day_.”

“Ah.”

“How can you remember our anniversary every month but not remember New Years?”

“I’m busy," Monoma said, sniffing moodily. “And it’s not as important, I guess.”

Shinso let out a puff of breath at that, apparently as amused as he was exasperated.

As the heat in his face finally started to die down, Monoma put his phone on sleep and slipped it back into his pocket, letting the hand rest on his hip. “Can you see if your parents are available? Maybe we can have a New Year’s Party or something.”

“Yeah, let’s both avoid calling it a New Year’s Party. I’ll ask them if they’re free, though.”

“If they have time in the evening we could have dinner. You’re from Ula’ula, right?” Monoma already knew the answer and didn’t bother waiting for Shinso to confirm. “Do you know any nice places we could get something to eat?”

Shinso opened his mouth and Monoma cut him off before he could get a word in.

“Nice by _my _standards.”

He closed it again, expression dangerously close to a pout, and Monoma smiled, giving him a loving pat on the arm.

“I’ll find something,” Monoma assured him.

He huffed. “Yeah, well. Hurry and find your soup while you’re at it.” He looked across the soup aisle, where they’d been standing for an inordinate amount of time. “And don’t make a reservation until I get word back from my parents.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Monoma said with a wave of his hand, but as he smirked at the cans of the soup on the shelf all he could think of was how he was going to find a way to impress Shinso’s parents so much they’d completely forget about their humiliating first impression. He picked one up off of the shelf and stared at the nutrition facts on the back through half-lidded eyes, not reading a word.

“Monoma, pick your soup.”

He put it back on the shelf, smirk growing across his face as he took another at random and did the same thing. Hearty Vegetable. The name sounded vaguely familiar but he turned it around all the same as Shinso began tapping his foot beside him.

“Neito.”

He didn’t respond, just put the soup back slowly, and Shinso made a sound of frustration.

“I swear to god, if you’re not done in three minute I’m leaving you here.”

Shinso waited five before picking a few cans from the shelf and dragging him off to the frozen section.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok real question how can i do a monoshin pokemon au in alola and not write nanu!aizawa 😂
> 
> guess i'm doing 8 days for monoshin week 😂😂😂
> 
> (i'd also feel slightly guilty denying all of u the chaos of 2 incredibly stupid blond super geniuses duking it out over who has the better bf/husband)
> 
> (altho depending on how things go i might not end up posting the chapter _tomorrow_ necessarily but i'll try to have it out asap nonetheless!!)


End file.
